There are many things : to wonder

The face of human storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection.

Where there is perfection there is no story to tell.

Ben Okri

There are so many things I recognize about you lately, that I just could not know or see before, so many things that I might say to you, if you were still here, but you are gone, even as all of these memories linger on deep inside of me.

Lately when I hear the advice, to think of those problematic people in our life as being 3 years old, it makes complete sense to me.. so much you suffered that never went away and was not even told to anyone much, for who was asking you? Who was there to truly listen? I am grateful for the times I did lately

A quote that I heard from a movie last night makes sense, that when our capacity to wonder is lost, life becomes dead and flat. When we stop asking questions and loose a spirit of inquiry, thinking we know it all or that such wondering and questioning is wrong perhaps we lose too an openness that may lead us down new and interesting pathways.

That wondering may take the form of inquiring how a person’s individual experience may be for them, questioning of values, sense and meaning.. From what point of view and perspective they see things for are we all not so very different in this way, even as some of us see things the same way?

Sometimes though it takes all of this this time, much struggling, suffering, mistaken assumptions and pain for us to manage a revolution or evolution of our wondering and of our vision. To keep an open mind, to show an engaged interest, to consider what is the priority for a person’s life, to love, to respect, to appreciate, to be kind, lately I wonder more and more are not these actually the most important of things, as you share with me so intimately all of the worries and concerns and points of tension and conflict happening in your family?

I am here to listen.. I am here to wonder. I am here to be grateful too for the gift of you, another human being willing to be open, raw and real with me and in so doing, help me to reflect upon my own experience.. Thank you for the privilege.

It is only through sharing our vulnerabilities and the most tormented parts of ourselves that we’re able to discover how much we have in common. How alike we all are.

Jessie Stephens